The Other Dark Room
by okh-eshivar
Summary: Three weeks after Max is taken by Jefferson, Victoria stumbles into his trap as well. Together, they cope with their bleak situation and try to find a way to escape.
1. Chapter 1

_This fic has all of the trigger warnings of Episode 4. If you were bothered by The Dark Room, then I would not suggest reading. Otherwise, reviews are much appreciated. Enjoy!_

I don't know how long it's been since that night. There's a clock in the corner, but after the first couple of days I lost track of how many times it's been ten thirty-eight, or twelve ten, or six fifteen. My arms hurt from banging on the steel walls, my throat burns from nonstop screaming for help despite knowing I'm underground. I don't know why I'm still alive. I don't know how many times I've been dosed. I refused food and water for a while, afraid of the drugs he'd obviously put in them, but I couldn't hold out forever. Every time I black out now, I'm surprised when I open my eyes next. He killed Rachael, and he baited Kate until she tried to kill herself, too. So what about me?

For a while I tried to justify Jefferson being behind all of this. Then I stopped. It doesn't matter why. Not anymore. This is happening, to me now. I have to focus on finding a way out.

I can't go back. Every time I even think about it, my head swims and the back of my brain gets heavy and fuzzy and dark and I bleed. I get scared, and I stop, because being murdered by a crazy fucking serial photographer seems nicer than flinging myself unwittingly into a time-spiral. And besides, as long as I'm still here, there's a chance I can escape, that I can get Chloe back. I try not to remember the look she had on her face when she hit the ground. Expressionless. I don't want to see that again.

Instead, I memorize the patterns of the days and I think my way around them, searching for lulls. I'm smart, I remind myself. I'm a problem solver. I've been MacGyvering the shit out of this murder mystery since day one, and I don't need my powers to maintain that skill.

At six o'clock (I'm not sure if it's AM or PM anymore), a little door opens at the base of one of the walls and a metal tray slides in with food. A bottle of water (drugged, I note. Always drugged. Sometimes if I don't drink the water I don't black out), a piece of fruit, a nasty white goop that might be old cafeteria mashed potatoes, and something microwaved out of a tv dinner box. If I'm so desperate for water that I drink from the bottle, I'm always gone. I usually wake up at nine o'clock with an awful headache and fresh bruises. If I don't, if I stay awake, I don't hear from anyone again until two thirty, then again at eight. I stay awake during this time, even if I have to dose my head in the toilet (flushable, thank god) to resist falling asleep naturally. As scary as the drugs are, I have I feeling I don't want to be conscious for whatever it is that he does to me when I'm out.

My clothes have been tampered with, but I never wake up sore _that way_. I thank God, not just for myself but for all of the other girls that had gone through this before me. I try not to think about it too much.

So there's three meal rotations. Four metal walls. A toilet. One hooded light bulb hanging down but out of reach. And there must be a camera in one of the dark corners near the ceiling that I can't see; I mean, he must know when I eat and drink and when I don't. Every six meals I get a new set of clothes and I have to return the ones I've been wearing. Every nine meals I get a plastic cup full of shampoo and a half bar of soap. Here's hoping I never have to wash my hair bent over a toilet ever again.

That's it. No human contact beyond a hand pushing the tray in and out, and whatever's going on when I'm passed out. Even more numbing than the constant burn of fear in my belly is the aching, infuriating, nauseating boredom of sitting in an empty room for hours. And hours. And hours.

I wonder if he's curious as to how I keep bloodying up my tops. I've tried to go back three times since the last meal rotation. If I don't eat or drink, I'm too tired to rewind. If I eat or drink, I'm blacked out or in a daze. He's trapped me more than he realizes.

And honestly, I don't even know how far back I'd have to go to escape, to save Chloe. I've never gone that far out without a picture, or a trigger. What if I rewound three days? Then that would be another three days I'd have to endure of this hell again.

I could play dead. Just collapse and lay in one place for a few hours, bloody up my face a little. But then what? What do I do when he comes in to check on me? He's probably got a syringe and a gun at the ready just in case.

I look up at the motionless hanging lightbulb, then at the toilet. My foggy brain is just starting to put together a plan when a new sound fills the space.

New sound. Something new. I jerk to my feet and look around wildly, listening. Voices. His voice, low and demanding. I press my ear to the wall with the little door. Another voice.

A girl. Another girl. My heart plummets down into my gut. She's begging. I can barely make any of it out through the-

The wall slides away. I pitch forward, panicked, and am shoved backwards onto the hard floor. The shock of the blow stuns me, and I'm not quick enough to get back to my feet before I hear the door slam shut again.

"Let me out of here, you fucking crazy asshole!" Someone inside the room screams, banging the sides of her fists against the steel. "I'll fucking destroy you! I'll have people looking for me in an hour you son of a bitch!"

I look up at her, vision spinning. My throat tightens up in a second, my face goes hot with both relief and a new panic.

"Victoria?" I croak from the ground.

She spins around, blue eyes going wide when they settle on me. Her yells die in her mouth. For a moment she doesn't move at all, face streaked with tears and clothing mussed and face twisted in confusion.

"Max." It's barely a whisper. Hearing another person say my name, hearing another person's voice, makes me burst into tears. "Oh my God. Max. Holy shit."

She's diving down to me in a heartbeat, arms wrapping around my shoulders and knees collapsed against the tile. I can't stop sobbing.

"Holy shit," she keeps muttering. "I fucking knew it. I knew you were alive. Nobody would fucking listen to me but I knew it."

I clutch at the back of her blouse, navy blue and velvety, and bury my face into her shoulder. Oh God, I haven't cried once since I got here. I can't believe this is. It must be a dream. She smells like vanilla lotion. I feel like I'm going to die. She says something about Chloe, or Chloe's car or a fire or something, but I can't make sense of it right now, nor am I particularly invested in it. Hearing her name only makes me cry harder.

She pulls back and I hate her for it, at least until I feel her fingertips tracing lines over my face.

"Jesus," she breathes. It makes me laugh, and the laughing almost makes me start crying again.

"Give me a break," I half smile, half blubber. "I've been washing my face in a toilet for-"

Oh my god. I grab her by the shoulders. "How long have I been missing?"

She grimaces at me, biting her lips between her teeth. Her eyes are bloodshot and her mascara is running and she looks so fucking beautiful right now.

"Three weeks," she murmurs. Her face twists up as tears start beading up in her eyes again. "You've been gone for three weeks and two days, you fucking idiot."

"Three weeks," I repeat. The substance of the words is alien on my tongue. "I've been washing my face in a toilet for three weeks."


	2. Chapter 2

5:43.

I thought I would want to tell her everything. About Jefferson, about Chloe, about this place. I thought I would be eager to spill it all, just because I've been trapped in my own head for three weeks, alone, and in a seemingly inescapable situation.

But for a long time after I stop crying and her anxiety had worn her panic down, we mostly just sit still against the back wall, huddled together. She hasn't really stopped shaking completely; I guess I can't blame her for that.

Some twisted part of my brain is actually kind of prideful over the fact that I didn't pour my heart out as soon as I saw her. A week ago I would have done that. I would have cried over myself and what I'd been through. Now, I can't stop thinking about the fact that he had taken Victoria, that he'd built up her trust in him just so he could get the opportunity to snag her in this sick game. I find myself wanting her to talk to me.

An hour passes before she says anything. I'm grateful for it when she does.

"This is pretty fucked up," she glowers, throwing glares at the toilet. "It's like, straight out of a horror movie or something."

I feel like I should laugh, but I don't. I'm not that crazy yet. "Yeah," I murmur. "It's looking pretty bleak."

"Have you been here the whole time?" It's weird, I can't really focus on her words all the way. I feels like I'm half asleep.

"I think so. This is the only place I remember being after the party." Besides the junkyard, a voice in my head rings. Yeah. Besides the junkyard. I'm not going to talk about the junkyard.

"Nathan, too." Her words crackle like dry leaves. Offhandedly, I'm surprised that Jefferson didn't drug her to get her here. "Nathan's missing. He wasn't at the party, and I couldn't find him anywhere. I think that psychopath did something to him."

 _Nobody will ever find her again after I'm done._

I got that text from Nathan at the party. I guess there's two possibilities: That Nathan is in on this whole thing and he disappeared to lay low, or that Jefferson has been setting him up this whole time and now he's abducted or dead. Either way, it doesn't sound like anyone is even suspicious of Jefferson. That thought hits me hard. No one even suspects.

No one will look for us here.

Stop. Just stop. I look up at the ceiling and blink back my tears. It's okay. It doesn't matter if no one looks for us, because we can find a way out of this. There's always a way. I know that now.

"How did he get you here?" I settle to reply, forcing my voice to stay low and even. Telling her my thoughts won't help the situation at all. It's best if I stay calm, so she can stay calm, and maybe we can figure this out together.

She sits up against the wall and draws her knees to her chest. "I…I hung around him a lot after you disappeared. That stuff you warned me about at the party freaked me out, and when I couldn't find you or Nathan anywhere afterwards…"

She shook her head, pressing her palms to her eyes in painful defeat. "God, I'm so stupid. I saw all of that weird photography at his place, the drugs in his bathroom, and I totally ignored it. He told me he could bring me somewhere safe, and I totally fucking fell right into his trap. Stupid."

I curl my nose at the suggestion. "Were you guys…close?" That's one way to say it.

She jerks her head up and scowls at me. "Are you seriously asking me if we were fucking?"

"I said close," I remind her before I can stop myself. " _You_ said fucking _."_

She scoffs and rolls her eyes, mumbling a string of curses, before she stands up and leers over me. "I really can't believe you. It doesn't fucking matter, does it? My best friend is probably fucking dead, and now I'm stuck in a metal box with the nosiest, most pretentious little shit in this town. I was actually worried about you, you know. Really worried. I kept thinking about when you talked to me in the club and how…"

She pauses, and it gives me time to internally groan at myself. Dumb. Why did I say that?

"Not a lot of people give a shit about me, Max. Everyone thinks I have tons of friends, but they're all just idiots that follow me around and feed off of me. They don't care. As soon as I start acting like an actual person they screw out faster than you would believe."

My brain is getting fuzzy around the edges again. I glance at the clock. Six.

"I don't even know what your game is, Max. You're just-"

The little metal door opens and her words are cut through by the sound of the tray scrapping against the floor. She whirls around to face it, breath caught in her throat.

I rise soundlessly to my feet and pace over to it, removing two apples, two black plastic containers with plastic spoons taped to them, and two bottles of water. The tray slides back out empty. I glance back to her with my arms full and offer her a sympathetic tilt of my head.

"I'm sorry," I say simply, trying to sound genuine. "I really didn't mean to sound like that. I've just been in here for a long time."

She clenches her jaw shut tight and looks away, red-faced. I shouldn't have said that, but this isn't a normal high school day where we can snap at each other and walk away. I return to our place on the other side of the room with the food, and after a moment she joins me.

I hold the water bottle up to her. "This is drugged," I instruct. "The water is always drugged. Don't drink it unless you absolutely have to."

She gives me a horrified look and leans away from the bottle unconsciously. "He's still drugging us? Why?"

My eyelids fall heavily over my eyes, tired and sapped. I shouldn't tell her. "I think he's taking pictures."

The explanation takes a second to really settle in, but when it does it's like someone just ran a current of electricity through her. "Oh my god." She curls up into a tight ball beside me, clutching at her temples. "Oh my god. This is fucked. I can't deal with this."

Faster than I expect she leaps to her feet and charges at the sliding wall, banging her palms against it, shouting the same way I had when I was first trapped. She screams and swears and kicks until she's gasping for breath. And I let her, because I think that's the right thing to do.

"How can you just sit there? Help me!"

I shake my head. "Trust me, that won't work."

"Trust you?" She spits the words as if they disgust her, or like in some other universe they disgust her.

"Yes, trust me. You can trust me. You know you can. I'm with you in this."

Her rigid stance goes lax. She stares at the steel for a long time, snarls at it, and gives the door one final kick and a 'Fuck You' just on principle. The weight of her predicament must have really hit her right then; I'm glad it's happening faster than it did for me.

I gesture at her to come back next to me. With one final groan she listens, dropping down with her legs crossed in front of her.

Neither of us drink. I can feel the stabbing pain of a dehydration migraine between my eyes, but I know my limits. I can last another meal. I can't convince Victoria to eat the apple, even though he never does anything weird to them. She's really scared. It hurts to watch.

10:33.

Victoria fell asleep about an hour after our remains were collected from the food. I stay awake, but just barely, so he doesn't come back for us. Putting her in the same room as me... he must have realized it would be a risk. A calculated risk then. Was he hoping to get shots of us together? Was that what this was about, getting a new perfect shot?

Well, it doesn't matter, not really. All we can do now is to make him regret it.

I spend two hours sitting still and chewing on my tongue to stay conscious. My head is throbbing. I wish Victoria was awake. If she was awake, then we could talk, or yell at each other, or whatever. I wouldn't be thinking of Chloe's dead-eyed expression anymore.

11:46.

Boredom. Boredom. Victoria wakes up in a total daze before she realizes that yes, she really is trapped in a metal box with the most pretentious little shit in this goddamn town and no, it wasn't some kind of stress induced nightmare. Her stomach lets out a curling groan. She clutches at her blouse uncomfortably but says nothing about it.

She sits up slowly, like she was just waking up after a blow to the head, and looks down at her feet miserably. I try to comfort her, but she won't even look at me. I don't blame her. She's scared. I'm kind of numb to my fear now, at least when I know there won't be any activity for a while. My head is swimming; I think if I stood up now I'd just fall over. The migraine has escalated from a weak ache to full blown skull crushing awfulness, and I have to really focus to see anything straight.

12:30.

Victoria is finally talking to me again. We stay close, despite there being enough room for both of us to have a decent amount of space. Space feels wrong, though. It feels isolating. I'm glad she's here. That's terrible, but true. I know I'm selfish, but with her here I'm more hopeful than before, I feel like our escape is just a matter of time.

"So you think there's a camera in here?" She speaks lowly, and so do I, even though I'm pretty sure there's no way he can hear us.

"Yeah. I mean, he knows when I'm asleep and he knows when I've taken the dose."

She scrutinizes the little door, narrowing her eyes at it accusingly. "He collects the trash, though. Wouldn't he be able to tell just by that?"

I shake my head. "There's been a couple of times where I've emptied the bottle in the toilet to try and get one over on him, but he knew."

"Fucking freak," she bites. Her expression dies from pure hatred to worry. "I hope he hasn't…I mean, I hope Nathan is alright."

I resist eye-rolling her. I mean, Christ. She's in it up to her neck now and she's still worried about a kid like that. But I suppose if that's evidence of anything it's that she's not a evil queen bitch everyone assumes she is.

I mean, not everyone. I don't really think that anymore. And Nathan didn't, or…doesn't…either.

"I got a text from him at the party," I tell her, leaning on my crossed legs.

She perks up immediately, leaning a bit closer. I can't help but notice how long and delicate her eyelashes look, and how even in the overpowering fluorescent light her skin is smooth and clear.

"You did? I didn't hear from him all night." There's a touch of hurt in the statement.

"It wasn't a particularly friendly text." God, my eyes hurt. I wring the hem of my shirt between my fingers and do my best to think through the pain, though I'm sure it's showing through. "And I don't think he sent it, either. I think Jefferson sent it using his phone."

 _I'm glad you got one last look at Rachael._

Her brow furrows as she considers my words. She sinks back limply into the wall when she grasps them, covering her face with her hands.

"Victoria," I say weakly. "Rachael's dead."

She doesn't move.

"We found her body in the junkyard."

"I don't care."

My heart drops, confused by her sudden animosity. "What?"

"I don't care about Rachael, Max!" She pulls her hands back and her cheeks are already streaked with tears. "Why would I fucking care about some bitch that went missing six months ago? My best friend might be dead. And he's probably fucking dead because of you and that-" she throws angry gestures into the open air- "blue-haired fucking drop out sticking your noses in other people's business!"

I feel my lips curl back, heat blazing in my chest. I stop being empathetic because she's not even trying.

"You don't know anything about what I've been through in the last month, Victoria!" I'm shouting. I shouldn't be shouting. But I can't just sit here and listen to this. Not after Rachael. And not after…

"Even before I was brought here. We found _Chloe's_ best friend buried in a fucking garbage bag! And that destroyed her, Victoria. If she had found Nathan at the party she would have killed him."

"Nathan didn't have anything to do with-"

"Shut up!" I snap harshly, jabbing my finger at her. Her face goes dark red, and I continue before she can say anything else.

"She went crazy after we got that last text. She took off to the junkyard and I was too stupid to see that it was a trap." My chest heaves. I don't want to cry anymore. "Jefferson shot her, Victoria. He stabbed me with a needle and shot her right in the fucking head."

She inhales like she's been punched and goes completely still, hands clenched around her upper arms.

"I couldn't do anything," I murmur, wiping my eyes with my sleeve. "I saw her hit the ground, and I passed out. When I woke up, I was here."

 _And here is nowhere._

She bites her lips together and lets her gaze fall to the cold floor underneath us.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, voice cracking. "I didn't know."

I let go of a ragged breath and sniffle. "It figures. People noticed I was missing, but Chloe was totally overlooked, wasn't she?"

"No," she says quickly. "She wasn't. Her parents showed up at the school every day, putting up fliers and asking Principal Wells for help. The entire police department was looking for you guys. Both of you."

The rest of her explanation comes less easily. "They found her truck in a ditch ten miles from Blackwell. The entire thing was torched, Max. There were pictures in the paper." She digs her nails into her palms. "Chloe was in the front seat. They found a gun in the car with her. Apparently they thought she committed suicide."

Suicide? That felt like a blow right to my stomach. "Suicide?" I press the back of my head to the wall and clutch at my scalp, pushing down the prickling flood of anxiety that was bubbling up through my spine. Suicide. Suicide. Chloe had been through everything. She survived her father's death, she survived Rachael disappearing, she survived finding her, she endured a life of misery just to gloat to the world that she was alive, and that she wouldn't stop until every bastard in Arcadia Bay had her name tattooed on their forehead. Anyone who knew her knew she would never kill herself, not when she was so angry with the world.

The other Chloe was different, but everything in that universe was different. Her life molded her into a totally separate person.

'They' say she committed suicide. Those same 'they's probably couldn't tell you her last name without looking in a file.

"She didn't kill herself," I heave.

I vaguely notice Victoria stand and approach me. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I push her away when she tries to get close.

I'm living in a world without Chloe right now. All of this time I refused to mourn because I was convinced I would be able to go back. I've been trapped in my own head, in the fantasy of my powers. But this is a universe where Chloe Price has been dead for three weeks. She's rotten by now. Joyce has been grieving for three weeks.

And I haven't been able to go back in all of this time. I might not even be able to anymore. The last image I ever have of Chloe might be that dead expression and the bullet hole in her skull.

Every muscle in my body goes painfully rigid, all of them bending into a black hole in my insides. My throat closes up around a string of dry sobs.

Chloe is dead, and I don't know if I can reach her now. I might die here. I might not be able to expose Jefferson. Chloe's murderer, and Rachael's too. My murderer. Victoria's murderer.

I'm never gonna get to tell my Mom that I'm sorry about that stupid plant. Mom. I've been missing for three weeks. Oh god, Mom is probably a fucking wreck, and I haven't thought about her once this whole time. I'm terrible daughter. I'm never gonna get to say sorry.

Something grabs me by the shoulders and I almost pass out. The pressure in my skull is almost too much and I can't open my eyes through the panic. My knees turn into spaghetti and I fall. Victoria yelps as she tumbles down with me.

"What am I supposed to do?" My teeth and lips rattle as I force the words out. "I don't know what to do."

It takes me too long to regain enough composure to force my eyes open. When I do, Victoria is kneeling in front of me with a painful frown stretched over her cheeks.

"I didn't know," she mutters. Somehow I know that's the best apology I'm going to get. I shake my head at her.

"Nobody knows anything. Chloe and I found some crazy shit over the last week. We've _done_ some crazy shit. That pain your feeling over Nathan? I get it, more than you can possibly understand. So just…pretend like you care more than you actually do."

She looks down at her lap guiltily, squeezing her hands together tight. The look on her face makes my frustration and anxiety crack. She's really worried about Nathan, and maybe about me too, and that makes me remember all of the times I was able to see through the Queen Bee mask.

"I know you're a good person, Victoria," I say lowly. "You don't have to push people out of the way."

She sighs, running her fingers through her short hair. "You've said that to me before."

"Maybe you should listen this time."

She hugs her stomach and pulls back next to me. We're quiet for a long time.

2:30.

The little door opens. The tray slides in. Two bottles of water. Two apples. Two pieces of stale bread. Victoria grabs it this time because I can't stand up. My stomach makes the most pathetic sound when I catch sight of it.

I devour my apple, core and all, and I gnash through the bread without even tasting it. When I go for the water, Victoria intercepts my hand.

"Are you crazy?"

I know my eyes are gross and bloodshot when I look at her. My head is squeezing around a single point of agony right in the center of my brain. It feels like my skull is being squeezed through a pinhole.

"I need it," I say weakly.

She gives me a desperate look and throws a glance across the room.

"What about the toilet? It's clean enough to wash yourself in, isn't it?"

I go for the bottle again, but she pulls back before I can get my hand around it. The sudden motion almost has me blacking out.

"Victoria, I promise you if I drink out of the toilet it won't flush tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next day. And this whole room is gonna get way less comfortable." There are consequences to getting caught cheating the system. I know that already. And Victoria's gonna know it in a few hours when he confiscates our clothes thanks to a stunt I tried to pull during the first week I was in here.

I put out my hand. She bounces nervously on her heels, groans, and gives me the bottle. I didn't taste the bread, but I'm fully aware of every chemical mouthful of it.

She barely eats anything, even though she's been here almost a full day. I lean into her when I start going fuzzy.

"What do I do?" she whispers with a jump in her tone. "What's going to happen?"

"Don't know," I admit. I'm relaxing. Part of this feels good. The part before the black. All the stress and the fear melts away until I'm floating, and all of this disappears. I go out fast, the bite of fear itching my stomach just as I slip away.

7:32.

I wake up groggy, and nowhere near as disoriented as usual. I wake up slow, savoring the sensation of sleep before I'm willing to return to reality.

Different this time. I remember someone is with me. For the first time in what feels like forever, I wake up with something soft supporting my head.

Victoria's busy picking at her nail polish when I peel my eyes open, an intense glare in her features. Her makeup is wiped off completely, lipstick and mascara peeled away.

"Hey," I murmur. She looks down at me through her fingers and gives me a real, actual smile.

"Jesus. You're awake." She put her hands on my shoulders. My head lulls back against her thigh. "I was scared you were, like, dead or something."

"Was he here?" I ask, halfway out of my daze.

"He came to the door," she replies. "But he didn't come in."

"Because you were awake," I reason. She was awake. So he didn't…

Oh my god. He doesn't want to take any risks. Maybe putting her in here with me was a mistake. Maybe she was supposed to go somewhere else. Maybe he was relying on us resisting instead of cooperating.

Whatever his reasoning, we can easily spin this to our advantage.


End file.
